Project
background

Crannogs are
island dwellings that are typically located in lakes and mires and have a
distribution centred around the Irish Sea, having mostly a ‘Celtic’
distribution across the north of Ireland and Scotland. However, being surrounded by water or wetlands, and rarely in the path
of development, they are rarely excavated although many are under threat from
drainage, erosion, eutrophication and natural decay (Barber and Crone 1993;
Lillie et al. 2008). The recent discovery of a crannog (Drumclay, Co.
Fermanagh) with near-perfect preservation of cultural artefacts in the path of
road construction in Enniskillen and another superbly preserved wetland village
in Dumfries and Galloway (Black Loch of Myrton) offer rare glimpses of their
archaeological potential and unique opportunities for this project over the
next three years.

There are around 1500 known sites in Ireland and 400 in Scotland
(but only one in Wales and none in England). Many
were constructed during the Iron Age, ca. 2500 years ago and used up until the
Medieval Period, but some examples are even earlier, being dated to the Bronze
Age and even a few are known from the Neolithic. As a settlement type,
therefore, they have a very long history. Improvements in crannog chronology
each side of the Irish Sea will have important implications for understanding
the stimuli for crannog construction since correlation may relate to common
environmental factors in this region, especially under the unstable climatic
conditions of the later prehistory and the sixth century.

Objectives

The project sets out to re-examine crannogs as
both a cultural and environmental phenomenon that link Iron Age and Medieval
communities of SW Scotland and N Ireland. We still know relatively little concerning their
role in society – were they long-lived or restricted to a short period of use,
permanent (year-round) settlements, seasonally occupied or ‘boltholes’? Were
they functional (storage, craft manufacture) and/or ritual sites or did they
have a defensive/protective function for the elite?

The recovery of
several high status Christian artefacts has also raised questions around the
role of crannogs in the spread of Christianity through the Celtic world, in a
region with almost (but not total) apparent isolation from Roman Britain and
the rest of the Roman Empire, to the south and east.

To answer these questions and explore the
cultural significance of these Celtic communities, we need to understand the
chronology, longevity, intensity of use, form, function, material culture and
environmental context of these sites. This project aims to derive this
information from the crannogs themselves through archaeological excavation but
also by tracing the signal of the crannogs in the surrounding lake sediments
through palaeoenvironmental techniques. It is clear that longevity & intensity are key variables but since
only a few crannogs have been and will ever be excavated we need additional
estimates from unexcavated crannogs. This will be achieved in this study by
linking with an on-going project on wiggle-matching timbers from Scottish
crannogs (AOC/SUERC) & by estimating longevity of use from cores as per
O'Brien et al (2005).

Here at Plymouth
University, the team will focus on palaeoentomological proxies. These include
Coleoptera (beetles) and ectoparasites (fleas, lice) which will provide
insights into crannog function (food storage, human/animal waste, living
conditions) and Chironomids (non-biting midges) which will provide an
understanding of the local environmental conditions and human activity (Ruiz et
al., 2006) across the period of crannog construction, use and abandonment.

Case
study regions

This
project will use excavation material and cores from a number of crannogs across
northern Ireland and SW Scotland. So far, fieldwork has been completed on 7 crannogs
from Northern Ireland (including Roughan Lough, Lough Na Crannagh and Lough
Enaugh) and at the Black Loch of Myrton in SW Scotland. Analyses on the various
proxies and archaeological sites are ongoing.

Dr Nicki Whitehouseis
an associate professor of physical geography. She specialises in the analysis
of fossil beetles from a variety of palaeoenvironmental settings, including
archaeological sites. Much of her recent work has been concerned with examining early Holocene
landscapes in response to natural and human-induced change and especially the
transition to agriculture in the Neolithic, its chronology, effects on the
landscape and the extent to which such activities impacted the cultural
landscape and its implications for the British and Irish Neolithic.

Dr
Kimberley Daviesis PDRA on the ‘Celtic Connections and Crannogs’ project. Her
research background is focused on reconstructing ecological and climatic
drivers of invertebrate communities in palaeoenvironmental settings.

Dr
Katie Head is a Technical Specialist in Geography at Plymouth
University. She specialises in palaeoecology and reconstructing past
environments from palynological data and has a background in environmental
archaeology.

Professor Tony Brown is
a professor of Physical Geography and the head of the Palaeoenvironmental
research group at the University of Southampton. His current projects include
geoarchaeological studies of deep time (Palaeolithic) at sites in Southern
England and East Africa, studies of environmental change in the Classical
period in Greece and research into both environmental and human response to
climate change in the British Isles during the Bronze and Iron Ages.

Professor Pete Langdon is
a professor of Quaternary Science at the University of Southampton. He research
concerns reconstructing past climate change from sedimentary archives
especially in lake ecosystems and using environmental reconstructions to inform
archaeological theory and human-environment relationships.

Dr Tierry
Fonville is PDRA on the ‘Celtic Connections and Crannogs’ project at the
University of Southampton. He interested in the impacts
of late prehistoric communities on the environment. His PhD research was on
crannogs, studying their effects on the environment. He is a specialist of lake
diatoms.

Dr Andrew Henderson is
a lecturer in Physical Geographer at Newcastle University. He works at the
interface of chemical, ecological and geological sciences, his research is
focused on trying to understand the patterns and mechanisms of climate change
by using the ‘natural climate experiments of the past’ archived in lake and
ocean sediments.

Dr Helen Mackay is PDRA
on
the ‘Celtic Connections and Crannogs’ project at Newcastle University. Her
research background is focused on reconstructing past environments using
palaeoecological and geochemical techniques.

Dr Maarten van Hardenbroek was PDRA on the ‘Celtic Connections and Crannogs’ project at the University of Southampton and is now lecturer in physical
geography at the University of Newcastle. He is interested in the effect of
changing environmental conditions on lake ecosystems. Most of his research
takes place at the interface between modern limnology and palaeolimnology,
using stable isotope techniques and assemblage composition of living, subfossil
and fossil invertebrates.

Dr Finbar
McCormick is a senior lecturer in Archaeology at
Queen’s University Belfast. His research is focused on the archaeology of the Early
Medieval period, especially in Ireland, especially concerning settlement and
economy. He is also a zoo-archaeologist.

Dr Emily Murray is a Research Fellow on the ‘Celtic Connections and Crannogs’ project at Queen’s
University Belfast. She is an expert in Early Medieval Ireland and an
archaeozoologist.